Archive for the ‘inner resistance’ tag
another day’s battle with inner resistance
it’s the start of another day
and the familiarity with a new schedule.
another coworker is rattled with having
his father take a rather bad turn
in a rather faraway place, which served to
keep him on edge for most of the day.
add to the mix a few truly annoying
coeds and customers and you have the makings
of a really trying day.
Which it was.
these are the type of days which
leave you to doubt why you’re here
if you only focus on the day
and exclude all other better days.
on some days realizing that the battle
of inner resistance is fought anew each day is frustrating.
Not today.
The battle of inner resistance begins again tomorrow.
For that I am grateful.
Tags: annoying, annoying people, better days, coworker, faraway place, inner resistance, rattled coworkerThe War of Art and Fundamentalism - how to deal with it
if you read The War of Art by Steven Pressfield,
you’ll notice a small section in it where he essentially
declares fundamentalism (defined as a belief in a fall from a higher state,
in a systematized corpus of recieved truth [i.e. scriptures], etc)
to be so incomaptible with true artistry that no one holding said beliefs
can be said to be a true artist.
As I hold enough beliefs to qualify
(and know of true professional artists who do), I was
initially annoyed at the passage’s tone of arrogance and condescension.
While it would be incredibly easy to blow off
anything else the rest of the book had to say,
I chose to go through the rest of the book to see
what it could teach me.
What it taught me was how to deal with criticism.
1. Criticism, whether right or wrong, is
inner resistance’s greatest ally.
You don’t need to give it any more ammo than
it already has.
2. Cull any actionable feedback from it
and trash the rest. When Moses was in the wilderness
dealing with the Israelites’ criticism,
he learned to delegate facets of his work without surrendering his mission.
3. Only one thing can counter inner resistance and
outside criticism - sit down and do your work.
The most elequent counterargument is continuing work -
be it a novel, an article, a painting, or a going venture.
Come to think of it, I’d suggest THE WAR OF ART to anyone
in the same situation as I am. The book not only lays out the course,
it gives you, in that section I mentioned, road-tested practice material.